Chapter Text
The riders touched down back on the edge a few hours after leaving the hunter's ship. Astrid hops down of toothless’s saddle just sitting on the night fury without hiccup felt unnatural.
The other riders landed soon after, dismounting their dragons and walking over to stand beside her.
“I can’t believe hiccups gone” mutters fishlegs
Astrid shoots him a glare “he’s not gone, we’ll get him back”
“What if he’s already dead” asks Ruffnut
“Not helping” grits Astrid heading back towards the clubhouse.
The group settle in the meeting room with their dragons, toothless lies in the corner not facing them.
“We need to tell chief Stoick” Announces fishlegs
Astrid scoffs “and have him order all of berk to scour the archipelago?”
“It’s his son missing Astrid, he’ll want to know”
“Not yet, if things get worse or we can’t get any leads on hiccups whereabouts we’ll tell him but for now we keep it to ourselves”
“And how do you suppose we even start looking for leads on his location” asks Snotlout sceptically
“We find out who’s ship that was”
Tuffnut pipes up “not sure if you remember Astrid but we haven’t seen that symbol before we don’t even know where to start looking”
Astrid stands up moving towards her dragon “then we ask the person who told us about the ship in the first place, johan”
They all watch as she mounts Stormfly before looking back at them expectantly
“Go to berk?” Asks fishlegs “didn’t you just say we aren’t going to alert Stoick that hiccup is missing”
“We won’t alert him”
“That all sounds well and good Astrid” quips Snotlout “but don’t you think he’ll ask what we’re doing in berk without our leader”
“He’s not the leader, I am” says Tuffnut pointing to himself
“No! it's me” snaps Ruffnut
The other three ignore the twins bickering continuing their conversation
“We’ll tell him hiccups sick or something”
Snotlout huffs and mounts hookfang fishlegs does the same getting onto Meatlug, the three take off into the air. It takes the twins a few moments to realise they had been left behind before they yell simultaneously, hop onto their shared dragon and fly after the riders
Toothless was distraught
His rider was gone. His best friend was gone, had fallen into a booby trap right in front of him and toothless wasn’t fast enough to save him. And then he had to fly off and leave his human on the boat.
The humans were talking about finding the trader they had spoken to before, toothless didn’t understand that. Why weren’t they going to Stoick? Stoick was strong and cared about hiccup a lot. Who cares if he had to scour the sea, at least hiccup would be found.
The other dragons and humans had just flown off to berk leaving him behind because he couldn’t fly without hiccup. He trudges over watches them disappear into the clouds before trudging back to the clubhouse and curling up in the corner.
He felt useless, he hated the fact he couldn’t fly on his own, though he never blamed hiccup for it, hiccup didn’t mean to injure him or damage his tail fin. Toothless also knew how guilty hiccup felt about shooting him down in the first place.
He raises his head looking over his shoulder and to his red tail fin, hiccup made it for him, hiccup was always working on improvements, in fact only a few days ago he was buzzing to toothless that he had finally finished a new design for a tail fin that would finally allow him to fly on his own.
He had been so exited when telling him, smiling and laughing, his eyes sparkling with joy, his excitement had been contagious leading toothless to start bouncing around and smiling with him. The two had gone on a lovely dusk flight that night.
Toothless lowers his head to rest on his two front paws, he missed hiccup
The riders landed near berks dock, normally they would land around the training ring or the blacksmiths but today they didn’t want to draw a crowd. They wanted to find Johan get the information they needed and leave.
The group dis-mounted their dragons and scoured the docks. there were many trader boats all with different goods from foreign regions. Tuffnut was the one to find Johan’s ship, it was quite small compared to the others due to the fact he was an information broker not a goods trader.
After alerting the others they all approach him. Johan looks up when he feels eyes on him, seeing the dragon riders approaching him their faces all serious made him tense up slightly.
“Uh hello there riders” he greets “what can I do for you on this fine day”
“Who’s ship was that you informed us about” snaps Astrid getting close up and personal with the information broker
“Uh-I…Ill have to look at my records”
“Don’t screw with us Johan you know those types of things off by heart, who did that ship belong to”
“A hunter”
“No shit” scoffs Snotlout
“The ship belonged to Grimmel” says Johan stepping back and away from Astrid but she merely follows him as he retreats
“Why didn’t you just say that straight away” she hisses
“I-i” he looks around then pauses raising a confused eyebrow “where’s hiccup?”
Astrid falters in her approach, her expression tightening “he’s sick back at the edge”
“Oh, is he ok”
“Stop trying to change the subject” says Ruffnut, Tuffnut nods behind her
“Dragon riders?” Calls a voice from behind them.
They all turn around to see the approaching form of none other than Stoick the vast “where’s hiccup?” He asks, his gaze flickering over the small group
Snotlout steps forward “he’s sick”
Stoick’s eyebrows knit together “is he ok?”
“Yeah, he’s fine” reassures fishlegs
“An’ toothless is with him?”
They all nod, non of them enjoyed lying to their chief but at the moment it was necessary.
“What are you all doing here then?”
They all falter for a brief second before Tuffnut answers the question “we’re getting some medicine” he nods
“Aye, that makes sense, come with me I’ll help you get some”
“Chief that really isn’t necessary” responds fishlegs weakly. Stoick’s expression only hardens
“He’s my son, I insist now come on and leave Johan alone he doesn’t make medicine”
They all begrudgingly followed him towards the village giving Johan a chance to worm away.
A few hours later they are all back on their dragons gliding through the air, Snotlout had a satchel of medicine and other items for tending the sick slung over his shoulders.
“Well at least if hiccup comes back sick, we’ll be prepared” he says trying to lighten the somber atmosphere
Astrid sighs ignoring Snotlout attempt at a joke leaning back and laying down on Stormfly “since we didn’t get any useful information from Johan, we’re going to have to do it the hard way”
A brief pause before Ruffnut asks the question on everyone’s mind “and what’s the hard way”
“We scour the ocean” she replies, voice unwavering “until we find another one of Grimmel’s ships, then we let it lead us straight to hiccup”